The Pale Boy's Secret
by Asleep
Summary: Two plot lines: Draco's life and Narcissa's (while she was a fifth-year) intertwined. But that might change soon.
1. Draco - Sleep

**The Pale Boy's Secret**   
  
by Asleep   
  
_NOTE: I don't own any of the characters that Miss Rowling owns, but if any new ones turn up, they belong to me. Also, if anything here conflicts with what happens in the book, it is most likely due to my absentmindedness (but let me know anyway so that I might fix it). This is only the first chapter, mind you--next, I'll do Narcissa.   
Enjoy, and please review! I need suggestions and knowledge of what people think.   
  
Love, Sophia (Asleep) _   
  
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**Chapter One:** _Draco - Sleep_   
  
  
The pale fifth year boy woke up in an armchair in the Slytherin common room extremely unrested. His incomplete homework lay on a table in front of him, exactly the way it had been when he had fallen asleep. Shivering, he noticed with annoyance that the fire had gone out since the night before.   
  
He hadn't slept well at all. Besides the fact that it had been past midnight before he had dozed off, he had woken up every half an hour or so, disoriented, before drifting back into his light slumber. The dream hadn't helped much, either. The boy tugged at a tuft of his fair hair, struggling to remember it. It had been more of a nightmare, he now recalled. And he'd had it over and over again...   
  
As memories of the dream slid blurrily in and out of focus, he realized, puzzled, that his mother had been in the dream (he never dreamed of her normally), sitting in a small and brightly lit chamber. She had not been her usual unpleasant self. No, she had been quite different, smiling and laughing, her eyes shining. The boy could not remember ever seeing her act like that.   
  
Then, all of a sudden, a shadow had moved over her, darkening the chamber and putting out the light in her eyes. She had stopped laughing and was backing into a corner of the room, terrified. He could not remember what had happened next--only a vision of his mother lying unconcious, so silent and still that she might have been in a photograph. What had happened to her? What had made her smile fade? And why, he thought, feeling a pang of longing, was she never this happy in front of him?   
  
"Aargh!" The boy snarled sleepily in frustration. It was no use. It was as if the more he tried to grasp the dream, the more it slipped through his fingers. He gave up trying to remember and instead focused his attention on finding the most comfortable position he could in the armchair (which was rather difficult as the chair was uncomfortable by nature), yawning drowsily.   
  
Drifting once again into a fitful sleep, Draco Malfoy did not notice the figure in black that was moving noiselessly toward him. He was having the dream again before the figure reached the chair in which he sat, before it lifted a wand and whispered these words:   
  
"_Stupefy._"   
  
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By lunch the next day, it was common knowledge among all of the houses at the Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry that Draco Malfoy was missing.   
  
The Slytherin table was the only house table in the room at which anyone greatly concerned could be found. (In fact, it seemed that a phenomenon had taken place--for the first time since anyone could remember, Crabbe and Goyle, Draco's closest friends, had not gobbled down their food as if it were their last meal.) At all of the other house tables, students either were indifferent or chattered excitedly about the matter. Most of the people at the Gryffindor house table belonged to the latter group.   
  
Harry Potter and Ron Weasley, neither of whom liked Draco much (to put it lightly), were joking about the various things that could have happened to him, enjoying letting their imaginations run wild. Their friend, Hermione Granger, was not joining them, but looking on in mild exasperation. She could not help laughing with them in spite of herself, however, for although she did not approve of making light of a such a seemingly grave situation, Hermione had recieved her share of nastiness from the Slytherin boy.   
  
At the moment, Ron was in the middle of a very imaginative theory indeed.   
  
"--So after dealing with that band of angry trolls," he was saying, "Malfoy makes his way (with some difficulty, owing the the fact that he hasn't got legs anymore) off to the lake and falls in. The water revives him and he sort of paddles with his arms towards the shore. But if he thinks the trolls and the falling boulders are the worst part, he's dead wrong, 'cause right then...erm..."   
  
Harry took over.   
  
"A hippogriff swoops down, picks the git up, roughs him up a bit, and then drops him on top of the Whomping Willow?" he offered.   
  
"Dat's bri'yant, 'Arry," said Ron through a mouthful of mashed potatoes. Turning to Hermione, he swallowed and said, "What happens next, 'Mione?"   
  
Though Hermione had chuckled at the story, she now said, while helping herself to more turkey, "I'd like nothing more than for Malfoy to get what he deserves, but what if something really _did_ happen to him? Wouldn't you feel awful if you'd been joking about tons of horrible things happening to him, and he actually was in danger?"   
  
"Oh, we're only joking, Hermione," said Harry. Remembering the times he had come into contact with the Whomping Willow, he added, grimacing, "Besides--I wouldn't wish the Whomping Willow on anyone. Not even Malfoy."   
  
"Yeah," Ron said. "Anyway, maybe he's not in any trouble at all. He probably just ran away or something."   
  
Although the three friends agreed that this might be the case, Harry, Ron, and Hermione were very wrong. Draco Malfoy hadn't run away. While the students at Hogwarts ate lunch, the pale Slytherin boy sat on a cold, stone floor, struggling to free his hands from the ropes that bound them.   
  
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_That's it for now. Please review and let me know what you think!_


	2. Narcissa - Secrets and Invisibility

**The Pale Boy's Secret**   
  
by Asleep   
  
_NOTE: This is from Narcissa's point of view while she was at Hogwarts. Please give me a chance and wait until I can develop this a bit. And please review and give me helpful suggestions--I need them.   
  
Love, Sophia (Asleep) _   
  
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**Chapter Two:** _Narcissa - Secrets and Invisibility_   
  
  
Narcissa Baker, a Gryffindor fifth year, stared out the window of the dormitory. Autumn light flowed through it, warming her face, which she had cupped in her hands.   
  
The girls with whom she shared the spacious room were eating lunch. Narcissa never ate lunch; it had become a habit of hers over the years at Hogwarts. She needed time to think, and most times during the day other than lunch she spent with her friends. She'd explained this to them and they'd accepted it and it had gradually become a custom for Narcissa to stay behind when the rest of the Gryffindors went down to lunch.   
  
Narcissa heaved a sigh and sank onto her bed. She felt guilty about the fact that she never told her friends what she thought about, not even her closest one, Lily Evans*. Lily knew about the things that had happened to Narcissa during her younger years, but the secrets she had, the ones that no one else knew about besides Aunt Clio, were much too personal--she wasn't ready to share them with anyone. Not yet.   
  
Aunt Clio. Narcissa had not thought of her for a long time. Instinctively, she put her hand to the left of her, half expecting to touch the sleeping figure with whom she had shared a small bed of straw for so many years. Narcissa still slept far to the right of her bed out of habit. For in instant, Narcissa was back where she had come from, back in the musty yet comfortable barn with Aunt Clio, lovely Aunt Clio. Clio was telling a wide-eyed Narcissa stories, vivid ones about vampires she had known and fairies she had been friends with...   
  
Narcissa shook herself violently as an involuntary tear slid down her cheek. _Aunt Clio is gone, you idiot,_ she told herself angrily. _She is gone and no matter what you do, she is never coming back._ At this, she let out a choking sob that she could no longer restrain. _And,_ she mind reminded herself, as though she wanted to hurt herself as much as possible, _it's all your fault._   
  
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"Narcissa...Psst!"   
  
Narcissa jumped, startled; she had fallen into a thin sleep. She rubbed her eyes groggily and stared up at the canopy of her bed for a few moments before she realized that something had woken her up. She looked sleepily around.   
  
"Who is it?"   
  
"Psst!" said the voice again. "Over here!"   
  
Narcissa peered in the direction of the voice and saw nothing. She heard hearty giggles. Now, she was beginning to get angry.   
  
"Listen, whoever this is, I'm really not in the mood to be laughed at." And with that, she drew the hangings of her bed closed with a jerk.   
  
There was a moment of silence, and then the hangings were slowly pulled apart. Narcissa was facing the other way, but she recognized the voice of the person who spoke next.   
  
"Er...Narcissa, are you alright?"   
  
Narcissa gave an indignant sniff. She lifted herself onto her elbows and turned her head to look at James Potter.   
  
"James, what the hell're you doing in the girl's--aaayiiiieee!"   
  
Narcissa yelped and backed as far away from what she saw as she possibly could. She shut her eyes, but when she opened them, it was still there, as clear as ever--there was James, but he was missing a great deal of his body. In fact, his head seemed to be levitating in mid-air!   
  
James laughed at the look of mingled terror and confusion on her face. In an instant, he was back to his normal self; Narcissa watched him materialize out of thin air and suddenly he was standing in front of her (but with all of his body parts this time). She saw that he was holding something liquidy-silver in his hands.   
  
"Beautiful, isn't it?" James held it out for her to touch.   
  
But Narcissa seemed far too angry to notice the beauty of this object. She seemed to be unable to speak. As a matter of fact, she looked so utterly stone-faced that James figured he had better explain himself before she started throwing punches.   
  
"It's an invisibility cloak," he said, holding it up. "That's why you couldn't see me before...erm...pretty good joke, huh?"   
  
This was apparently not the correct thing to say at the time. Narcissa looked as if she could have hit James, and he thought she was going to for a moment. He was surprised, however, when she started laughing. He was even more surprised when she pulled him into a tight hug (but, perhaps, more relieved than anything), still laughing hard.   
  
"I'm so glad I have friends like you..." she said. Or, at least, that's what James thought she said; her voice was muffled because she had buried her face in his shoulder.   
  
James, who didn't know why she had said that, just smiled. It was a few moments before he realized that his friend was crying.   
  
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_Sorry, that was a bit weird. Have faith, though...more will be revealed later. Please tell me what you think and give me suggestions--I need lots of those.   
*Sorry about Lily's last name. Frankly, I wasn't sure whether there'd been a last name mentioned or not. Thanks noyb and thanks everyone for the great reviews!_


	3. Draco - A Lot of Revelation

**The Pale Boy's Secret**   
  
by Asleep   
  
_Note: Here it is, sorry for the wait. Let me know if there are errors in this one...   
  
From now on, I'm hoping the chapters will be getting a bit longer. And scroll down for a nice "Thank You" section. _   
  
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**Chapter Three:** _Draco - A Lot of Revelation_   
  
  
Draco Malfoy was sitting on a cold, stone floor. Actually, it wasn't as bad as it sounds--in the room was a large bed and even an armchair (which looked loads more comfy than the ones in the Slytherin common room). In fact, someone had even laid out tea and toast with butter and marmalade. But Draco was so put out about being tied up that he seemed to want to be as uncomfortable as possible for the sake of being contrary to whomever had kidnapped him.   
  
"Damn rope. Wish I had my wand."   
  
Draco's hands and wrists were raw and scraped with rope burn. Ever since he had woken up in this room (he suspected he'd been there for at least a day) he had been trying many methods of freeing his hands, which were bound with an extra thick rope. He was beginning to get rather desperate, and the more desperate he got, the more inventive and rediculous his methods for removing the rope grew (among these methods were banging the rope on the floor and trying to talk his hands into becoming smaller).   
  
Draco was seriously considering the notion of gnawing his wrists off when there was a funny noise. He looked up just in time to see a doorway form out of nothing in one of the stone walls.   
  
When Draco saw who was at the other side of the wall, he couldn't restrain himself. The cold, defiant look that normally graced his face vanished and was instantly replaced with one of utter surprise.   
  
"Mother?"   
  
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At Hogwarts, things were beginning to get a bit out of hand. Rumors about Draco Malfoy's disappearance were spreading as quickly as fire--and getting stupider even _more_ quickly. Hermione heard a series of pretty weird theories that involved mutant toads, but these weren't the worst of them. In fact, professors were having quite a difficult time teaching (Professor Snape had to stop every few minutes, one Potions class, to chastise Pansy Parkinson and some other Slytherin girls and order them to cease the animated discussion they were having about how awful it would be if Draco's silvery hair were messed up during a struggle).   
  
"They're starting to get really worried," said Hermione in the commonroom after dinner the next day. "If Malfoy's run away, he's not at home. His mum and dad are apparently going mad at Professor Dumbledore about letting whatever happened happen to him."   
  
Ron laughed loudly. "Oh, right. As if anyone would care if that stupid prat got himself blown up, let alone kidnapped."   
  
Harry was about to agree, but decided against it at the look Hermione gave Ron. Sensing a lecture about sensitivity in a grave situation, he instead said, looking across the room, "What's Professor McGonagall's doing here?"   
  
Hermione and Ron follow Harry's gaze. Sure enough, Professor McGonagall, the head of the Gryffindor House (who was rarely seen in the commonroom) was pushing her way through the crowds of students.   
  
"Hey," said Ron after a few moments. "Hey, she's heading for us!"   
  
Indeed, Professor McGonagall seemed to be walking straight towards the three friends, looking rather grim. When she finally reached them, she looked sharply at Hermione.   
  
"Miss Granger, please come with me."   
  
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As Hermione followed Professor McGonagall through the dark corridors towards what Hermione presumed would be her office, she noticed that the hallways seemed much less inviting under the cirumstances (although she was not yet sure what these circumstances were). She had left Harry and Ron, very confused, in the commonroom. They didn't dare, of course, ask Professor McGonagall if they could accompany her, but she now wished they all had at least tried. She found herself feeling very small and alone without them by her side. With a deep sense of foreboding, she struggled to answer the questions that were chasing each other through her head.   
  
_Why had she been summoned so late at night? What had she done? Why did McGonagall look even more serious than she usually did?_   
  
What bothered Hermione most was the fact that she could not answer these questions, a problem she never usually stumbled upon.   
  
"In here, Miss Granger."   
  
Hermione looked up, now feeling quite miserable. Professor McGonagall was holding open the door to her office, indicating that Hermione go in. Hermione's usual confidence deserted her altogether as she shuffled nervously through the doorway.   
  
Inside, Professor Dumbledore, the headmaster, was sitting in an armchair before the fire. The sight of him would, under normal circumstances, have cheered Hermione up a bit. But Dumbledore's usual smile, like Hermione's confidence, seemed to have flown from his face. It left him appearing nearly as grim as Professor McGonagall, a look which did not suit him at all.   
  
Gesturing to a chair, he spoke to her.   
  
"Please, have a seat, Hermione."   
  
Although being called by her first name made the situation seem a bit friendlier in her eyes, Hermione fidgeted anxiously with a tiny hole in her robes as she sat down. Glancing about the room, Hermione noticed a snowy owl sleeping in a cage. This came as a surprise as she had been in Professor McGonagall's office before and had never seen an owl there.   
  
Professor McGonagall sat down and started rearranging papers and books on her desk. McGonagall, Hermione realized, seemed to be as nervous as she was.   
  
Hermione's attention was drawn back to Dumbledore as he extracted what looked like a letter from the folds of his purple robes. He said gently, "This appears to be for you, Hermione."   
  
Taking the letter from his outstretched hand, Hermione looked at the front of it. It was blank except for her name, which was written in a hasty scrawl. Noting that the envelope had already been opened--"Precautions," Professor McGonagall said--Hermione pulled a very short letter from it. Smoothing the crinkled parchment out with trembling hands, she read:   
  
_Come to the Leaky Cauldron in Diagon Alley tomorrow night. You alone can bring Draco Malfoy back, Hermione Granger._   
  
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Although the face of the person who stood before him was shadowed by a hood, Draco recognized the long, silvery hair and slender figure.   
  
"Mother?" he repeated.   
  
The woman sighed and lifted the hood of her cloak to reveal a pale face. Sure enough, Draco's mother stood before him--or so it looked.   
  
How could this be his mother? How could this be Narcissa Malfoy? The more Draco looked, the less he recognized about her. The cold hardness in her eyes had been replaced with a certain sadness. She had deep circles under her eyes. She did not even carry herself the same way--Draco's mother stood tall and stiff, while this woman's figure was more relaxed and awkwardly slouched. She was also nervously fidgeting with her robes; Draco's mother never fidgeted, but always kept herself composed. She must have used the Polyjuice Potion...   
  
For a moment, Draco was speechless. He and the strange woman stared at each other. Suddenly, he remembered himself. His eyes regained the coldness that he had inherited from his mother. He fixed the silent woman with a piercing glare.   
  
"Who the hell are you?"   
  
The woman seemed to regain the power of speech.   
  
"I--I'm your--mother," she said shakily, in a foreign voice, quite unlike Draco's mother's.   
  
"Oh right," he sneered. "And I'm a houself wearing a velvet dress and dancing shoes."   
  
The harshness of his tone seemed to catch upset the woman immensly (which he considered to be ironic, considering which of the two was sitting on the floor with his hands tied). Each word seemed to be like a slap in her face, for she flinched when he spoke. But Draco wasn't finished yet.   
  
"I see you've used the Polyjuice Potion. I don't know what for, but let me give you a bit of advice: If you're going to use it, at least make it convincing. You're _nothing_ like my mother."   
  
The woman had lost her voice again. She looked even more pathetic than before. The corners of her mouth had turned down in a sad frown and her eyes were full with tears which she was making no effort to repress. Draco found the sight overwhelming and turned away from her. He wished she would speak or at least move--anything but stand in the doorway and stare.   
  
"Look," he muttered, avoiding her gaze. "Whatever ransom you want, my family will pay it. I promise. They're used to this sort of thing. I've been kidnapped before..."   
  
As if Draco's last comment had jerked the woman suddenly from a trance, she straightened up and moved, for the first time, toward him.   
  
"You're wrong," she said indignantly, as if his suggesting this were utterly absurd. "This isn't about money. And I _am_ your mother."   
  
Draco, rather taken aback by her sudden burst of words, frowned at her wordlessly.   
  
"You're correct, however, about one thing," the woman continued. "There is Polyjuice Potion involved..."   
  
She dropped her stern look. Her eyes filled again and she bit her lip.   
  
"...Only I'm not the one who's using it."   
  
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Hermione looked over the top of the letter. Professors Dumbledore and McGonagall were both watching her intently as if they expected her to speak, but Hermione did not know what to say. There was a long silence which Dumbledore finally broke by clearing his throat.   
  
"Hermione," he said gently, "what do you make of this?"   
  
Hermione did not know what to make of it at all. She stared blankly back at the professors as she tried to make sense of the letter. Who had sent it? How could she, a muggle born, and Malfoy, a son of one of the richest and snobbiest families in the wizarding world, be connected in any way other than their mutual loathing of each other? When she had first read it, she had thought it must have been a joke, but then why would she have been called into Professor McGonagall's office so late? Why would they both be looking almost as grave as they had the night Cedric Diggory died?   
  
"I don't know," she finally said in a very small voice.   
  
Dumbledore sighed. "Well," he began, "to be frank, we didn't think you would."   
  
He paused, as though waiting to see if she would say something, but Hermione was concentrating on the now throbbing feeling in her stomach and didn't feel much like talking. Dumbledore went on.   
  
"We are taking this letter quite seriously, but we have decided not to alert the Ministry of Magic."   
  
"But--but why?" Hermione said, rather shocked. "I would think that you'd want to get the Ministry involved with something like a missing student."   
  
Professor McGonagall said bitterly, "Cornelius Fudge would try show up at Diagon Alley with a squad of Aurors and eighty dementors, all ready to perform the kiss." McGonagall seemed to have lost quite a lot of respect for Fudge, the Minister for Magic, ever since the year before when he had allowed a dementor to perform the kiss on someone before he had testified.   
  
"That," Dumbledore said, "is exactly what we don't want to happen. Not only would it not be fair, but I believe I know who the sender of that letter is."   
  
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Draco was sitting in the armchair, hands untied. His suspicions were confirmed--the chair _was_ a lot more comfortable than the ones in the Slytherin common room. But that's not what he was worried about.   
  
His mother was busy boiling water for more tea; the tea that had been laid out had long since turned cold. But, Draco reminded himself angrily, she was not his mother. For Draco was still very much convinced that the woman could not possibly be his mother. Sure, there was a definite resemblance at first glance, but anyone who had met his mother would surely know that this was not she.   
  
_Like right now, for instance,_ he thought. _Mother never makes tea. I've not seen her set foot in a kitchen in my life._ He saw the unpleasant but farmiliar image of his mother, who always seemed to have a cup of tea in her hand, being brought tea by a servant, never bothering to say "thank you."   
  
Perhaps it was the belief that the woman who stood fixing tea was not his mother that drove Draco to examine her features. She was quite beautiful, a quality he had never associated with his mother. Her beauty was strange and unearthly, like nothing he had ever seen before. She didn't seem to care much about her appearence, though. Her silvery hair had been roughly shoved into an untidy braid as though it were a nuisance; her nicely shaped lips had been bitten and were dry, cracked, and peeling; there was no trace of make up or anything of the sort on her face. The sight of Draco seemed to oddly please the woman and she often glanced at him and smiled weakly, something his mother rarely (if ever) did.   
  
Despite his annoyance at her for kidnapping him and pretending to be his mother, Draco wished for a brief moment, that this pretty woman were his mother. But he quickly banished this thought from his mind.   
  
"Here you are, dear," the woman said, pushing a hot cup into Draco's cold hands. She did this rather awkwardly, as though she didn't know how to act around him. Settling herself against a wall, she watched him.   
  
Draco didn't touch his tea. "You haven't explained anything," he said, laying the cup down on a little table next to his chair. He crossed his arms and scowled.   
  
This seemed to be what the woman had been dreading, because she immediately went back to fidgeting, balling and unballing her fingers into fists nervously. She began pacing the room, which irritated Draco immensly.   
  
"I guess," she said, finally stopping pacing, "It all started when I was a child. You see--"   
  
"I don't care," Draco interrupted, "about your damn childhood. Just tell me why you took me here."   
  
The woman crumbled under the look he gave her as if it broke her heart. Draco looked away from her for the second time.   
  
"I came to tell you the truth," she said slowly, after a moment. She wasn't looking at him anymore, but at a corner of the room, as if she could see something there. "I brought you here, took you out of school, to tell you about my past and your past. To tell you about what kind of a man your father is."   
  
She said this last sentence fiercly. The coldness that Draco recognized in his real mother returned to her eyes. He shivered, but she didn't see.   
  
"So," he said, sneering slightly. "Enlighten me, please. Who are you? What kind of man is my father? And what of the Polyjuice Potion that you so cleary use but deny it?"   
  
The woman looked at him again. She stared determinedly and for once seemed not to be affected by the way Draco looked at her.   
  
"Your father's raised you to be just like him," she said decidedly, as though this had just occured to her for the first time. "I tried so hard to prevent that when you were little."   
  
Draco couldn't think of what to say to this. He was annoyed that he could no longer control the woman's emotions by giving her venemous looks.   
  
She sighed and leaned against the wall again, looking away from him again and staring into space. "I suppose I'll start with the Polyjuice Potion, since that's what seems to interest you. The woman you think is your mother isn't," she said. "You think she is, but she isn't. _I'm_ your mother. _I_ gave birth to you. _I_ raised you until you were five."   
  
He blinked and stared. The woman seemed lost in thought.   
  
"Do you remember your nursemaid?" she suddenly shot at him, finally facing him.   
  
Draco nodded, dumbstruck. He remembered. Marielle, his nursemaid, the one who always kept her face hidden with a scarf from under the eyes down, the one who never spoke. She had taken done everything for him when he had been little--she had cooked for him, bathed him, taken him to the park. He remembered, suddenly, the way her eyes would crinkle at the corners, showing that she was smiling. He had loved her.   
  
The woman smiled rather wildly as he remembered. "See?" she said triumphantly. "That's what kind of a man your father is. That's what your father made of me. I'm your mum and you only knew me as your nursemaid."   
  
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_I hope that was okay. I had to wait a while to finish it because I had an English essay to write. The "thanks" section is in order of the reviews.   
  
Thank you to everyone who has reviewed, whatever they said, thus far (because I love seeing _my_ name in "thanks" sections):   
All's Well that Ends Well, Lorelai, Someone-Who-Reviewed-Anonymously, Hermione2, julie, Lyra, Dendraica, "noyb", Pansy Parkinson, Jess, Kacella, trowa barton, Heir of Darkness, Draconia, Ravenclawizard, Margaret Comer, Lelio, Sylph, Angel, LadyLady, Maya Papaya (thanks for reading it!), Cleary, Firecloud, Selphie, Malfoy's Girl, Lady Mags, Hope Murphy, Thea, Ts, and Prongs*.   
"Fanks" to you all!   
  
Love, Sophia _


	4. Jammies Galore

**The Pale Boy's Secret**   
  
by Asleep   
  
_NOTE: I know this starts with Draco, but don't be decieved: I've decided to intertwine the two storylines together within chapters rather than having them have their own chapters. As usual, a "Thanks" section will follow, and watch out for quotes and references. I want to see if anyone can spot them! (Melody: I know you'll be able to spot one in particular.) Please point out errors of any kind._   
  
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**Chapter Four:** _Jammies Galore_   
  
  
Hermione Granger sat on a stool in the Leaky Cauldron, a cup of untouched tea by her hand. Though it wasn't particularly cold, she shivered involuntarily. While she waited for whoever she was waiting for, she went over the past twenty-four hours in her mind.   
  
Dumbledore had gently refused to tell her whom he believed Malfoy's kidnapper was. Despite the fact that he assured her that she would be safe (he covered her with protection charms of his own invention), especially if he was correct about who the kidnapper was, Hermione was very nervous. She comforted herself with the knowledge that Dumbledore would not send her on a mission by herself if he thought that she would be in danger. That must have been why he hadn't involved the ministry.   
  
The situation had been made worse for her when she discovered that she hadn't seen Crookshanks in a few days. Normally she wouldn't have thought much of it--Crookshanks often took long journeys--but it seemed that, put on top of everything else, not being able to find her cat pushed Hermione over the edge. Harry and Ron found her in a stall in Moaning Myrtle's bathroom (it was the last place on their list of where she might be) and when they did, they found her with her head buried in her arms, too distraught to hide her tears of frustration.   
  
Harry and Ron. Hermione felt, like she had done walking to McGonagall's office, small and alone without them. At first, Ron had been rather annoyed.   
  
"How could you have agreed to go through with it? _Malfoy?_" he had said, horrified.   
  
That was before she had explained, however, that she had no control over the situation. This, however, as she thought afterwards, was not altogether the truth. She had not actually ever _asked_ Dumbledore if she could have not gone, but he had seemed to know what he was doing. Besides, Hermione certainly didn't want to question a professor.   
  
But perhaps there was more to it than that. Perhaps she hadn't bothered to ask because she had _wanted_ to help Malfoy, even if he was a miserably slimey git. If this was true, it was due to the fact that Hermione wasn't like Ron--she couldn't just let someone get hurt if she could help it, even if it was Malfoy. Ron probably didn't mean it, but Hermione wasn't the sort of person who could even joke. Not about that.   
  
It had been hard leaving Ron and Harry. Hermione had hugged them both and assured them she'd be alright, which was something she wasn't at all sure of herself, and Harry had given her his invisibility cloak ("Just in case," he had said). She was very apprehensive; sure, she'd faced things that had seemed much worse than this before, but she'd always had them with her. She had become so dependant on their friendship (quickly, she checked herself--she wasn't dependant on their friendship, she simply valued it) that she felt her confidence abandon her in their absence. She wished fervently that they were with her.   
  
On top of it all--the pressure of having to "rescue" Malfoy, losing her cat, missing Harry and Ron--she was very, _very_ tired.   
  
"More tea, Miss Hermione?"   
  
Hermione was jerked smartly from her thoughts. She lifted her head up, which was buried in the folds of her cloak, and looked up to face one of the teenage boys who worked at the Leaky Cauldron.   
  
"Er--no. Thanks."   
  
The boy shrugged, blushing, and walked off with the kettle. Hermione found with annoyance that she had lost her train of thought. She sighed and buried her face back in her arms, trying in vain to pull herself together. Everything seemed so unreal, like a blur...   
  
Hermione was miserably dwelling on the number of classes she would miss when a cold hand on her shoulder made her jump and look up.   
  
A tall figure stood over her. It--or her, by the looks of things--was covered head-to-toe in beautiful blood-red robes, so that the only skin visible was the area round the eyes. Hermione saw that the woman's eyes shone as though she were smiling. She could tell that the woman was nervous--she was wringing her hands. Quickly, so that Hermione barely caught it, the woman winked. Then, she turned slowly on her heel and walked over to the fireplace, motioning for Hermione to follow her.   
  
Hermione sat, open-mouthed, for a few moments before remembering herself. She left what she owed on the counter and, gathering up her things, hurried towards the woman, whoever she was.   
  
>>  
<<   
  
Draco woke up and stretched. He fell out of his bed, which seemed much narrower than usual, and tripped over a rope, which was an odd thing to be on his dormitory floor; but it wasn't until he walked into a solid wall on his way to the shower that he realized that he wasn't in the fifth-year Slytherin dormitory anymore.   
  
"Shit," he said, with much feeling, backing into a wall and sliding down it. For once, he was at loss for a snide yet clever remark. He rested his head on his knees, scratching his head and letting his fingers get tangled in his pale hair. It was all coming back to him. Here he was, imprisoned by psycho lady, the woman who claimed to be not only his mother but his nursemaid. It was a crazy situation and he pondered whether he was going mad.   
  
_That's it!_ Draco thought. He must be dreaming. He pinched his arm very hard, as he had seen people do in a Muggle movie his father had brought home for some Death Eater research. He didn't wake up. Feeling that he must not have hurt himself enough, he frantically looked about for something that would.   
  
Luckily perhaps for Draco, he was interrupted before he could find anything.   
  
"Draco!"   
  
Draco scowled sleepily under his arm towards the direction of the crazy woman's now farmiliar voice, which was coming ffrom behind him, with the intent of telling her off for giving him a narrow bed. Nothing in the world, however, could've prepared him for what he saw. There, in front of the fireplace, was the woman. And standing next to her, a look of mingled horror and amusement on her face, was--   
  
"Granger?"   
  
Draco was instantly relieved of all sleepiness and disorientation. He was snapped back to reality as though someone had poured a bucket--or a truckload, rather--of icy water on him. Granger, Hermione Granger, was standing there, getting a rather direct view of his--tush. Suddenly conscious of the teddies and fire engines on his pajamas, he scrambled to get his body from the neck down behind the bed and out of view of the fireplace and its occupants.   
  
But, of course, it was far too late.   
  
"Er...heh..."   
  
Hermione clapped a hand over her mouth and turned very pink. Draco suddenly felt the strong need to explain.   
  
"It's not my fault," he stammered. "She, er, got them for me. They're not mine."   
  
He realized, after a few more moments of awkward silence, that his saying this didn't help his situation much. He looked away from Hermione, who looked like it was taking every fiber of her being to keep from collapsing in a heap of giggles, and instead fixed his attention on the woman, who was nervously fumbling with her cloak to lower the hood.   
  
"Why'd you bring her into my room?!" Draco barked moodily. "In fact, why the hell's she here at all?"   
  
The woman, though she jumped slightly at his tone, pretended not to hear him and frowned in concentration. As she finally removed her cloak and shook out her mess of hair, Hermione stopped trying not to laugh immediately and uttered a small gasp of surprise. She had seen Narcissa Malfoy and the Quidditch World Cup and apparentally had not yet seen _this_ woman's face.   
  
"But--" Hermione started.   
  
"She's _not_ my mother, so you can save your breath for laughing it up some more."   
  
Hermione gave him a serious look. "Well you have to admit, those pajamas--"   
  
"Oh, shut up!" Draco howled.   
  
"No, _you_ shut up, Teddy Boy!"   
  
"Stop it!" the woman called shrilly yet calmly. "Both of you. Really!"   
  
Draco and Hermione glared at each other. The woman looked from one to the other and sighed, her hands on her hips.   
  
"Now I didn't bring you two here so you could bicker like a pair of five-year-olds," she said. The woman looked from her son, who had his lower lip in a pout and his arms crossed, to Hermione, whom she could tell was fighting the urge to stick out her tongue.   
  
Hermione turned slightly to the woman. "If you aren't Malfoy's mother," she said slowly, "then why do you look so much like her? Does she have a twin?"   
  
Draco scoffed. "No," he said. "She's just some nutter who's pretending to be my mum so she can--"   
  
_"That--is--enough."_   
  
Draco looked up, startled, at the woman. He hadn't seen her look this way before. Her features were twisted in a way even his mother's never were.   
  
She was livid.   
  
"First of all," she said slowly, her hands shaking slightly, "I _am_ your mother, no matter how much you deny it, no matter how little proof there is. That, I know is true, whether you believe me or not.   
  
"Secondly, I could explain everything if you two would just shut up long enough for me to get a world in edgewise. Honestly, I've never seen anything like it. You argue like an old unhappy married couple."   
  
Draco and Hermione opened their mouths to protest at this last bit, but the woman held up her hand and they didn't dare go any further.   
  
"Thirdly, we're going to have to work together from now on. You two will get along. And," she added, "as there are only two bedrooms, you'll be sharing one. And no late-night snog sessions, please, I'll be right next door." _(NOTE: No, I did not write this into the plot as an opportunity for Hermione and Draco to have wild sex. You'll notice the PG-13 rating. Carry on, then!)_   
  
At this, they really _did_ protest. The woman couldn't exactly understand what they were saying, as they both burst out at the same time, but she did catch snatches: "shit", "they leave toilet seats up", "smelly", and "corn on the cob" were the only parts she could make out (though she thought she might have misheard some of it).   
  
"Really, there's no need to say 'corn on the cob,'" she said, a shadow of a smile on her lips, after they had calmed down enough to breathe. She ran a thin hand through her silvery hair distractedly. "Really, you act as if I just told you I've signed you up for a nudist colony. You're sharing the bedroom, not the bloody _bed_, after all."   
  
"Now, wait a minute," said Draco, his eyes narrowed into tiny slits. "You expect us to be cooperative? You kidnapped me, and I don't even know what _she's_ doing here," he gestured wildly at Hermione, still keeping his lower body hidden behind the bed.   
  
The woman frowned. "Draco, I--"   
  
"And you gave me firetruck jammies!"   
  
For the second time that night, Draco realized he hadn't said the right thing. There was another awkward pause.   
  
"Well, I am truly sorry about that." And the woman sounded sorry. "But I didn't really have much time to pack for you, so I grabbed the pajamas at the top of your drawer--"   
  
"No!" Draco cried, but the damage was done. Hermione looked triumphant.   
  
"A-ha! So much for the teddies not being yours, Mal--"   
  
"Oh, shut up! I'm going back to bed."   
  
Draco, still pouting, climbed carefully into bed (strategically blocking the teddies from view) and turned so he was no longer facing Hermione and the woman, who were still standing in front of the fireplace. Sleepiness was once again starting to take him over. He vaguely heard what sounded like a large bed being magicked.   
  
"Get some sleep," the woman whispered. "I'll explain things in the morning."   
  
Hermione seemed to be as tired as Draco, for she didn't ask questions or even protest. In fact, she only uttered a large yawn.   
  
Draco turned his head very slightly, but it was enough to see the woman walking towards the wall. Again, like she had done when he had first seen her, she made a doorway appear in it, only this time she conjured an actual permanent door. She opened it quietly and, before walking through it, glanced anxiously at Draco, who quickly closed his eyes. After the woman left, he heard Hermione shuffling about the room. He fell asleep to the sounds of her brushing her teeth.   
  
>><<   
  
Narcissa glanced in James' direction and heaved another sigh of relief--he was staying true to his word.   
  
She had sworn him to secrecy the day before, very embarrassed. The last time she had behaved that way...it had been a very long time ago. Before she had come to Hogwarts during the second year.   
  
Looking again at her dinner, she struggled to pay attention to the boy who was talking to her.   
  
"--so I asked her about it and she said she'd give me the extra homework," he was saying earnestly.   
  
"Er...yeah," she said, peering at James again.   
  
"Narcissa," said the boy, sounding remotely hurt, "why do you keep looking at James?"   
  
Narcissa looked reluctantly away from James, who now seemed to be arguing with Lily, and faced the boy who was speaking to her.   
  
"I'm sorry, Remus," she said, "but I'm just a little preoccupied today--"   
  
"That," Remus said, and now he sounded very hurt indeed, "is obvious."   
  
"No, I--"   
  
But he had already gotten up and stalked from the table, no doubt to retire to his sanctuary--the library.   
  
"Just swell!" shouted Narcissa, slamming her fork down and making sure for one last time that James was keeping his promise (although she knew he was). This all came down to Aunt Clio, as it so often did. It was so like her to ruin everything for Narcissa.   
  
She pushed back her chair and made to go after Remus and explain things to him (or rather, she realized, to find him and make up a lame story, for she couldn't tell him what was really happening), wondering vaguely why he thought she was involved with James.   
  
_I really don't think my day could get much worse..._ she thought bitterly under her breath as she reached the Great Hall entrance.   
  
"Hallo, Narcissa!" said two unpleasantly farmiliar voices from behind her.   
  
Narcissa rolled her eyes. _"Oh," God says, "a challenge."_   
  
She turned grudgingly around and tried to smile. It was Artemus and Apollo--Art and Pollo--Prattworth, her fellow fifth-year Gryffindors. They were twins, and though Art was a girl and Pollo was a boy, they were very seldom seen out of the company of each other. In fact, Narcissa had become quite accustomed to finding Pollo in the girls' dormitory.   
  
Overall, the characteristics of the black-haired, blue-eyed twins that stood out most were that they were extrememly annoying and non-ceasingly gossipy.   
  
"Er--look guys," Narcissa said distractedly, looking over Art's shoulder to see if she could spot Remus, "I want to chat, but I really can't--"   
  
"But this is important!" said Art. Narcissa saw that she was flushed with excitement. Curiosity got the better of her.   
  
"What exactly do you mean?"   
  
Art and Polly exchanged a meaningful look.   
  
"Well," said Pollo, a very slight smirk on his face, "see for yourself."   
  
He held out his hand and Narcissa saw for the first time that he was brandishing a rolled up copy of _The Groovy Chick,_ something of a tabloid for young Hogwarts witches (published by a group of flakey sixth-years). She took it and, when she caught sight of the cover, gaped at it in horror. It read:   
  
_ James Potter and Narcissa Baker: Unable to share their love with the world. _   
  
Under the headline was a moving photograph of Narcissa and James hugging in the girls' dormitory the day before; it seemed to have been enchanted so that the Narcissa and James in the picture were kissing passionately.   
  
Narcissa said nothing, only shoved the magazine roughly back into Pollo's hands and walked listlessly off. She could still hear them sniggering as she mounted the marble staircase.   
  
So that's why James and Lily had been arguing. She must have read the magazine. And Remus--   
  
Remus! Narcissa had nearly forgotten. She quickly descended the staircase she had just trudged up and stalked off towards the library.   
  
>>  
<<   
  
When Hermione woke up, it took a moment for her to figure out where she was. Upon realizing that she was no longer at Hogwarts, but in a chilly bedroom a few yards away from a snoring Draco Malfoy, she felt a pang of dread. How had she gotten herself into this?   
  
Reluctantly, she rose from the bed and went for her toothbrush. She had felt somehow secure under the covers and now felt rather vulnerable and unguarded, even though Malfoy was asleep. He had pulled his quilt right up to his chin in a transparent attempt to hide his teddy and fire engine specked pajamas. His pale hair was all over his face. She snorted, realizing that she was spending too much time watching Malfoy.   
  
As she padded slowly in her slippers to the bathroom, Hermione yawned and made a mental note to tell Ron and Harry about Malfoy's pajamas.   
  
  
  
When Draco woke up, it took next to no time at all for him to realize where he was. He had walked into a wall once already in the past twenty-four hours and he wasn't going to make the same mistake twice.   
  
If he were at Hogwarts at this moment, he thought, he would probably be trying to sneak away from Crabbe and Goyle. Draco wondered what was happening there. Were they looking for him? Well, they had sent Hermione. But that didn't make much sense. Come to think of it, nothing that had happened to him lately made the least bit of sense at all. Everything was surreal. He wasn't even quite sure whether he was alive.   
  
He stumbled out of bed (noting that Hermione wasn't in her bed) and went grumpily for the small bag in which the woman had carefully packed some of his things. Everything was folded very neatly and it didn't take him very long to find what he was looking for--his hairbrush.   
  
Walking over to a circular mirror he had discovered the day before that was mounted on one of the walls, Draco began brushing his extremely messy hair with equally extreme care. He heard a smirk behind him, but didn't turn.   
  
"What's so damn funny, Granger?"   
  
"You," Hermione said from behind him. "I don't know anyone who spends so much time brushing their hair."   
  
Now Draco turned fully to face Hermione.   
  
"Some people take pride in their looks," he said. "Others prefer to stay buck-toothed and bushy-haired."   
  
"So that's how you decide on clothing? How good it looks? I didn't know teddies and firetrucks were in these days, Malfoy."   
  
The shock from the pajamas of the night before had worn partly off and Draco was ready for a nice arguement.   
  
"Didn't you? They're all the rage. You should throw away that nasty, frilly thing and go out and buy yourself some T&F lingerie."   
  
"Who are you, the spokesperson?" Hermione looked mildly affronted by Draco's insulting her nightdress. "I can just picture the name of your shop now: Malfoy's Teddy & Firetruck Clothing."   
  
"Are you two almost through? If not, I can try chucking some of these pancakes into your open mouths, because I don't want them to get cold."   
  
Draco and Hermione both jumped. They had been enjoying their discussion so much that they hadn't noticed the door opening. The woman stood their, a large tray in her hands, looking very amused.   
  
"Alright," she said, setting the tray down on the floor and suddenly looking serious. "Since it seems that you two are running out of things to do and beginning to resort to bickering again, I think it's time to explain why you're both here. I suppose I owe you that much."   
  
>>  
<<   
  
_Okay. There wasn't much Narcissa in this chapter, but I'm working on it. I'm sorry if this sort of dragged...I just wanted to get this up as fast as I could.   
  
As promised here is the Fanks Section (not very long at all, but complete):   
  
All's Well that Ends Well, Kayeth, Jess, Ravenclawizard, ~wicked*witch~, elisa, Thea (put up your next chapter!), Fallen*Angel, Hermione2, and Melody (guess the quote). _


	5. Untitled

When Draco left the bathroom and entered the bedroom again, Hermione was sitting in an armchair, reading a large book that she had rested on her lap ****

The Pale Boy's Secret

by Sophia ("Asleep")

****

Chapter 5

__

Note: Hey, guys. I'm really sorry about how long this took, but I had a lot of trouble. Oddly enough, things got easier when I started using Microsoft Word instead of Notepad. I guess that this way, it feels more like I'm writing a story, not HTML code for a website. Anyway, I'm seriously considering splitting up Draco at Hogwarts and Narcissa at Hogwarts. I think I'm probably going to do it. I'll make them companion stories. But I'll keep all the Narcissa flashbacks in this one…Well, I still have to sort things out.

__

Anyway, stay tuned after the story for some important messages and a thanks section!

Love, Sophia

****

When Draco left the bathroom and entered the bedroom again, Hermione was sitting in an armchair, reading a large book that she had rested on her lap. She had apparently not noticed his presence, judging by the fact that she had neither made a snide comment about something like his brief ferret-hood in the previous school year nor formed that firm line with her mouth that she so often did at the very sight of him. She seemed to be immersed totally in the boring-looking volume, with her eyes squinted slightly and her fingers running absently through her loose curls...

Draco must have been standing in the doorway for at least two minutes, just staring at her. He really hadn't gotten enough sleep, had he? Shaking his head slightly, he walked towards his bed with the intent of shoving his embarrassing pajamas to the bottom of his small bag. He had to walk right in front of Hermione in order to do this and he glanced at her from the corners of his eyes as he passed. This time, he was sure she noticed him, for her mouth formed the line, but she didn't even look up. Draco was slightly hurt. He had been here—though he was still not sure where "here" was—for a few days at least, and he was quite sure he had rarely been without a companion for that long. At Hogwarts, he was very popular among his fellow Slytherins, unsure as he was as to why. At home, aside from his brothers and sisters, he had always had a nurse to play with, no matter how old he got. Sometimes he wished his parents hadn't done this—it had made him the dependant person he was today.

In all honesty, Draco was growing quite lonely. And if bickering with boring-bossy-Mudblood-Gryffindor-Hermione was the only thing there was to fill the void, then there was nothing he could do about it.

Heaving a sigh, Draco flopped lazily onto his narrow bed. His kidnapper (having tired of referring to her as "the woman," he had dubbed her "Narcissa the Second;" feeling after some time that this was utterly stupid, he had settled for a while on calling her the "Insane-Weirdo-Pollyjuicing-as-Mother;" he had found that the latter title became too long, and grudgingly decided upon "Narcissa," having nothing else to call her) had told them to wash and dress, assuring the incredulous pair that all would be explained once she returned. As he had no other choice, Draco had believed her. After all, what else was there to believe, lately? He was still in the never-ending process of convincing himself that he was dreaming. And still, he was damned if he knew why Hermione was there.

As they ate their breakfast, Hermione, who seemed to have taken a liking to Narcissa, had chatted with her. (Draco supposed that with all the danger and messes foolhardy Potter got her into, she was used to things being out of the ordinary.) Narcissa had fondly reminisced about her days at Hogwarts—about how all the boys had had crushes on Professor McGonagall. She seemed very interested in Potter's invisibility cloak. When she had spotted it poking out of Hermione's bag, she had asked to see it, and when she had held it in her hands, she had smiled at something neither Draco nor Hermione could see. Draco himself hadn't eaten much. In fact, he hadn't been feeling like eating much at all lately, even before school had started again. It worried him. Even his mother—or could it be a different person who wasn't really his mother at all?—who usually didn't bother noticing changes in him, had told him he was growing frail and sickly looking and that he was too short. 

Draco didn't like what Narcissa had said about his father at all. He loved Lucius, Death Eater or not; he liked to think that his father loved him back. Lucius probably did love him, in a way. But not in the way a parent should love a child; more like the way one grows fond of a painting. That's what Draco was to his father: an image of himself. 

And what had she meant by what she had said? How could she be Marielle? Although, he admitted, it wasn't that implausible. Now that he thought about it, the two women resembled each other somewhat, and his nurse _had_ left quite suddenly. She hadn't even bothered to say goodbye...

But Draco didn't want to think of these things anymore. He tilted his head toward the ceiling, willing the frustrated tears that had begun to leak slightly to go away. He was distraught, that was all, because everything that had happened to him lately was a confusing blur. Again, he found himself wondering whether it was all just a dream...

After a few minutes, he staged a another loud sigh and turned to see if Hermione had lifted her head. Alas, even though she was almost entirely facing him, she hadn't. He sat up fully, leaning his back against the cold stone against which his bed was pushed and scowled at her, crossing his arms, poised and ready to play his favorite game: Gryffindor taunting. But still, Hermione refused to even to acknowledge that Draco was there, aside from her expression. Draco was now getting so bored that he was almost ready to sing "This is the Song that Doesn't End" or run, screaming, in circles around her chair, _anything_ to get her to pay attention to him. He yearned for a good argument.

He decided against the impulse to do something drastic (no matter how much attention he usually received, his nurses had always taught him to be composed and civilized) and instead got up and began wandering around the room, which was far from empty. Aside from the two beds, there were bookshelves, cases with strange objects and instruments in them—all sorts of things that Draco supposed he just hadn't bothered to notice before. For a medium-sized room, it was pretty packed. After walking about for a minute or so, picking things up here and there, he decided upon a dark blue, very old-looking book entitled _How to Provoke People into Arguing With You, Volume IV: An Advanced Study of Insults._ After all, if he was going to read, he might as well read something useful to his situation. 

Twenty minutes later, Draco was thoroughly enjoying his book. It had been a while since he'd had time to himself to read anything. At Hogwarts he could never get rid of Crabbe and Goyle, and he didn't like reading in front of them. During the summer, he was so busy with the activities his parents signed him up for that the only books he read were to his eight-year-old brother, Caius. Draco loved his little brother, but he often wished Caius would make him read something other than _The Happy Hippogriff Goes to Hogsmeade._ He was learning loads of new insults, ten of which he planned to try out on Hermione once she started paying attention to him again. Neither Draco nor Hermione noticed the door softly click open, nor were their ears sharp enough to detect the spell that was whispered a moment after

***

__

She looked fondly at her son. He gazed back up at her with the same fondness, but she knew what he did not. 

"Where's Mama?" he asked.

It took all the willpower she could muster to keep herself from pointing to her own chest. "Here I am," she would have said. "Mama's here."

Instead, she said, "Your mother's in London. She's at a party with your father."

Her son sniffed and his chin quivered. "I miss Mama." 

She smiled at him. "But I'm here, little baby," she said, holding his tiny and cradling him. "I'll be here forever."

Her son buried his face in the folds of her dress and sighed contentedly. She ran her fingers affectionately through his soft, blond-white hair and then kissed the top of his head. He smelled sweet. 

Soon, he was fast asleep, clutching his mother's robes and breathing softly.

***

"Hey--"

"Shh!"

Draco opened his eyes partway and found that his face was inches away from Hermione's. Her hand was clamped firmly over his mouth and her elbow was dug firmly into his chest. They were lying very close to each other, but he couldn't make out where they were, as it was very dark. All he could see was a vague outline of Hermione, and she seemed to be concentrating very hard on hearing something.

__

Well, Draco thought, _there's no longer any question: I'm either having an extremely weird and irritating dream, or else I'm in some parallel universe in which Hermione Granger does_ not _mind having her hand on my face._ He decided that he wanted some answers.

"Ow!" Hermione howled. Then, more quietly, she hissed, "Why the hell did you bite my hand?"

"I'm sorry," Draco said, thankful to be able to speak again, "but I couldn't get a word in edgewise with your fingernails digging into my cheek and your elbow in my chest, could I?"

"Well," retorted Hermione, glaring at him, "thanks to the fact that your big mouth's not used to going more than two seconds without saying something, we might just have been caught."

Draco's face fell for a moment and he opened his mouth to say, "Caught by who?" But he quickly recovered himself. 

"How was I supposed to know?" he said defiantly. "Besides, I'm sure no one (whoever we're hiding from) heard."

He seemed to be right about this, at least, because no one came.

"There," Draco said. "See? Now, would you mind telling me what in the hell is going on? What're you worried about and who the hell are we hiding from?" He tried to sit up, but immediately regretted it.

"Shit!"

"Shh," Hermione said again, but this time with sympathy. She gently helped him ease onto his back.

Draco tightly shut his eyes, which were leaking tears of pain, and bit down on his lip hard. Now he knew why they were lying down—all over his body, he ached with bruises he hadn't noticed before because he had been lying so still. Someone had decided not to stop at stunning them. Someone…

Then, something occurred to Draco that made him want to sit up again.

"Where's Narcissa?" 

Hermione frowned. "I don't know. That's something I've been trying to figure out myself. Do you think…you know…"

"Think what?"

Hermione shifted uneasily. "I mean, do you think that she was just having us on the whole time? That this was a trap?"

Draco thought about the way Narcissa had looked at him. 

"No," he said. "I don't."

"Okay," Hermione said. "What were you dreaming about?"

Draco was startled. "What?"

"Well," Hermione said rather worriedly, "when you woke up, you looked really bothered about something. Were you dreaming?"

"Oh," Draco said. "No…I wasn't. I don't know what you're talking about.

He tried to lift his head to get a better look around, but this only made it throb. He tried to think in spite of the headache that was slowly consuming him. The last thing he wanted to do was to talk to Hermione, but if he wanted to know what was going on, he knew his only option was to cooperate. 

"Listen," he began reluctantly, "Do you have any idea at all why you're here? Why Narcissa called you here in the first place?"

"No idea," Hermione said. "They just called me into McGonagall's office one night. No explanation or anything." She hesitated before saying, "What about you?"

Draco sighed. "I don't know. It seems like she's trying to get some sort of revenge on my father. But he's not a bad person." 

There was a tense pause. Draco knew that Hermione was fighting not to say something about his father.

"So," Draco ventured after a moment, "d'you know how we got here?"

Hermione frowned again. "No," she admitted. "All I remember is being in the room with you, reading my book. And I haven't been awake for that long—maybe for fifteen minutes. I haven't seen anyone except you."

"Oh," Draco muttered, disappointed. Though he didn't know Hermione well, he knew that it wasn't like her to not know everything that was going on. "You don't even have any idea where we are?"

"Well," Hermione said thoughtfully, "I've been awake long enough for my eyes to adjust somewhat to the dark. I _have_ deduced that we're definitely not in the same place we were before. Probably not even in the same building."

They were silent for a few minutes. Draco tried to get a grasp on what was happening to him. If he wasn't dreaming, then this must have been real life. And if this were real life, then what would become of him? Would he be doomed to die with a Mudblood? His father would be so ashamed of him. Lucius would probably not even bother with a funeral, just chuck Draco's body over the side of a volcano… 

Suddenly, Hermione gasped loudly, interrupting Draco's train of wildly irrational thought.

"What?" Draco cried in alarm, forgetting himself and sitting up. "What's wrong?"

"I was just thinking," said Hermione. "Where are our things? What if I've lost the invisibility cloak? Harry will kill me a thousand times!"

"…Oh. I see." Draco rolled his eyes. Then, realizing that he had sat up and that he was in excruciating pain, he hissed in a short breath of air. He dropped back onto the floor with a thud and wrapped his arms around himself.

"I'm sorry," said Hermione worriedly, touching his shoulder, "I didn't mean to—"

"Never mind," Draco said shortly through clenched teeth, shrugging her hand off. He hated showing her that he was weak.

***

__

"Narcissa! Wake up, lazy girl!"

I groan and roll onto my stomach. A kitten has been sleeping on my back and mews indignantly. I want to remember my dream, but all I hear is Priscilla's shrill voice in my ear. 

I hate it when they call me that wretched name. "Narcissa," a title given to me out of spite. "Marielle," what Auntie Clio calls me fondly, suits me much better. I don't have a real name, just like I don't have real parents.

Priscilla's voice continues to ring from the kitchen and I have no choice but to listen. Grudgingly, I sit up and look around. It's summertime, when Auntie and I sleep in the barn, but she's not here—probably gone to do her early chores. Auntie's absence does not shock me, but I don't want to get up if she's not there. It's her_ job, not Priscilla's, to give me orders anyway. I only answer to her, the one who is like my mother. Besides that, who wants to sort Mrs. Collins' dirty undergarments? Not me. I flop back into my bed of straw and curl up with one of the cats..._

__

I smile as I hear Auntie approaching. She sits down beside me, facing my back, and reaches through my hair to tickle my ear. 

"Go away!" I swat playfully at her with my tiny hand.

"Come on," she coaxes. "Up you get."

This is not a request. I squeal with delight as she heaves me over her shoulder and walks towards the bathing area as if I were light as a feather. The other servants, including Priscilla, glare at us as we go by. 

***

"Hmm," Draco said. He and Hermione had long since managed to pull themselves into sitting positions. The room must have been pretty big—there didn't seem to be any walls for miles. They had, however, found a sturdy wooden box and were leaning on either side of it. 

"What?" Hermione said.

"Well," Draco began, "I was just wondering."

"Wondering what?"

"Well, how come we haven't been put under any spells? It seems as though all they've bothered to do is kick the shit out of us."

"Watch your mouth, Malfoy," Hermione said tiredly. Then she added, rather suspiciously, "What is it you're getting at?"

"If this person is really dangerous," Draco went on as though he hadn't heard Hermione, something he knew she hated, "then why didn't they bother to put us under some sort of spell? You know, bind us, or something. Put us in an electric cage. I'm saying that it probably wouldn't do us any harm to get up and poke around a bit."

There was a pause. Draco found himself wishing (for perhaps the first time ever) that he were alone. Hermione was always loath to taking stupid risks; therefore, things would go much faster if she weren't around. But then, he thought with a smirk, he would miss the pleasure of her company.

"Well," Hermione started slowly and reluctantly, "I guess you're right. I just don't think we should underestimate our captors. If we've been captured at all, that is."

Draco, who had started to try to get up from the moment the words "I guess you're right" had come out of Hermione's mouth, said, "We aren't, stupid. We're just going to try to figure out where we are."

"Okay," Hermione said. "But don't call me 'stupid.'"

"Fair enough."

It took them a while to stand up fully. 

"All right?" said Hermione when they finally did.

Draco looked her over. She was still bleeding from her forehead and the few patches of skin that poked out from underneath her robes were covered with bruises. She looked fragile, breakable almost. He shuddered to think what _he_ probably looked like.

***

__

I'm laundering little Brett Collins' undershirts, and Priscilla and Aurora, who are mending clothes a few feet away from me, take up their favorite game: Narcissa baiting. Today, they've decided to talk about me as though I'm not there.

"I don't see," Aurora giggles, "why everyone likes her. She's really ugly."

"Quite," Priscilla agrees. "Although she _sure doesn't seem to think so. What a narcissist."_

I study my reflection in the basin of water. I _don't think I'm beautiful. I can't help it if everyone says I am. _

I dump a pile of smelly socks into the water and my reflection blurs.

***

"If only they'd left us our wands."

Hermione and Malfoy had been poking around for at least a half an hour. Hermione was beginning to wonder whether they were inside at all. They must have been, though. All she could hear was the "clack, clack" sounds their shoes made against the tiled floor.

"No," said Malfoy sarcastically, "I really love not being able to see anything."

"Look," Hermione snapped, not stopping walking, "I don't like being with _you_ any more than you like being with _me._ Though if you'd adjust your bloody attitude and stop being so immature, things would be much easier for both of us."

Malfoy rolled his eyes and kept walking. 

Hermione sighed. It was only just hitting her that she was walking aimlessly about in a potentially dangerous situation with Draco Malfoy. Of course, it just _had_ to be him, she thought bitterly. How had she gotten into this? If Harry and Ron had been there, things would have been so much easier… 

"What's that?" Malfoy said suddenly.

Hermione looked and saw what he was pointing at.

It was large and wooden crate and it looked like it was stuffed with fabrics of all colors. As they got closer to it, Malfoy, without hesitation, lowered himself to his knees and started rummaging through it. 

"You know," said Malfoy after a moment, "you don't have to just stand there. You could come and help me. I won't bite, if that's what you're worried about."

This took Hermione by surprise. She hadn't realized that she was standing a good distance away.

"I'm not worried," Hermione said, coming up to kneel next to him.

"Then you're just afraid that this crate is going to spontaneously explode and blow us both to smithereens," Draco smirked.

"I'm not going to even comment on that," Hermione said, beginning to sift through the dark contents of the crate.

"You just did."

"Oh, stuff it up your—"

"Ah!" Malfoy cried suddenly.

"What?" Hermione said excitedly, moving closer. "What'd you find?"

Malfoy was holding a bundle of fabric and looking at it in admiration. "I've found," he said, "the only thing we're going to need except for our wands."

Hermione frowned, puzzled. 

"Sorry if I missed something," she said, "but I fail to see how a piece of dirty fabric will help us."

Malfoy waved his hand as though to brush her comment away.

"No," he said impatiently, "don't you see? They're _towels!_"

Hermione thought a moment.

"Nope," she said. "I still don't get it. Must be dense or something."

"You never know when a towel might come in handy," Malfoy said, tossing her a shockingly pink one. "Read your _Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy_ sometime."

"Whatever," said Hermione, rolling her eyes. Not only was Malfoy extremely unpleasant, but he now also seemed to be a bit of a nut job. "Look, Malfoy, I don't know what you're…" 

But Malfoy wasn't listening to her. His porcelain-colored skin was turning paler than ever and his eyes were fluttering.

"Malfoy, stop it," Hermione said, though she seriously doubted that he was faking it. "You're scaring me…"

Malfoy, his knuckles completely white from clutching at his towel, pitched forward and hit his head on the floor, blacking out.

****

What has happened to poor Draco? What happened to Narcissa? What the hell's with those weird italicized passages that have somehow weaseled their ways into the "Draco" part of the story? And what of McGonagall's go-go boots? _What of the go-go boots?! _Tune in next time for the answers.

Alright, please inform me if there are errors or things that don't make sense. I'm too lazy to proof-read my own work. 

Oh, by the way. I don't know if I'll be posting the next chapter before I go to camp for two months on the 21 of June. I'll try my best, though. And even if I don't, I'll probably finish the entire story while I'm at camp, so the few people who actually read this will have something to look forward to…

And here's the "Thanks" section, as promised (please review more!): 

Hannah, Melody, Prongs, SaneLunatic, karina30, Emily, Hermione2, Thea, Mere, and Maya (hope you're having fun in Paris!).

E-mail me ([luna@mail.nu][1]) with any questions, or even if you just want to chat.

   [1]: mailto:luna@mail.nu



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